INTRODUCED BY MAVIS CHEEK Together yet alone, the Misses Bede occupy the central crossroads of parish life. Harriet, plump, elegant and jolly, likes nothing better than to make a fuss of new curates, secure in the knowledge that Count...

INTRODUCED BY KATE SAUNDERS 'I am a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN In a provincial university town, Caro Grimstone, a dissatisfied faculty wife, becomes the unwilling accomplice to her husband Alan's ambitions. When she...

INTRODUCED BY HAZEL HOLT 'Barbara Pym is the rarest of treasures; she reminds us of the heartbreaking silliness of everyday life' ANNE TYLER When Barbara Pym died in 1980, she left a considerable amount of unpublished material. This...

INTRODUCED BY ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Mildred Lathbury is one of those excellent women who are often taken for granted. She is a godsend, 'capable of dealing with most of the stock situations or even the great moments of life - birth,...

With introduction by John Bayley. von Pym, Barbara

INTRODUCED BY PAUL BINDING 'One of her very best - comic, heartrending, brave; in short, like life itself' SHIRLEY HAZZARD 'Pym has a unique eye and ear for the small poignancies and comedies of everyday life . . . [her novels] are...

Jane and Prudence von Pym, Barbara

INTRODUCED BY SALLEY VICKERS 'Her best [novels] are sheer delight, and all of them companionable. Quiet, paradoxical, funny and sad, they have the iron in them of permanence too' JOHN UPDIKE, NEW YORKERCatherine Oliphant is a writer and...